Often when I watch a PG-13 horror film, my expectations are kept at rock-bottom. It's not that it would be especially difficult for a film to be scary without being R rated, but it's usually something that just doesn't end up happening. Then again, R rated horror films can suck too, in fact most big horror films aren't very good no matter the rating, so I guess it's best to just expect a horror film to suck. That way when a good one comes along you'll be really pleased. Then if you're anything like me, your hopes will be raised and you'll go on a horror movie kick, only to be reminded once more that most of them suck. It's a viscous cycle.
The Guillermo del Toro produced "Mama" falls somewhere in the middle for me. It didn't suck by any means, but neither was it that great. I suppose for a PG-13 horror film it's a cut above what we're used to, but that doesn't excuse some questionable choices when it came to character designs which nearly ruin the entire experience, and an ending which seemed to come straight out of another film. And the film that the ending came out of was not very good.
Despite these issues the film begins strong with a very well done first 10 minutes which is horrifying, heartbreaking and atmospheric as hell. A man comes home after killing his wife and boss, and takes his two young daughters for a ride to nowhere in particular as he speeds along an icy highway. They fly off the road and crash, making their way to a cabin in the woods. As the man is about to shoot his daughters in despair, he is killed by a ghostly figure, who the girls call Mama.
After a long 5 year search, the man's brother, Lucas (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) finally finds the girls in the cabin. They are feral and can barely speak anymore, having seemingly survived by themselves in the woods the whole time. Of course, we know that they were raised by the ghost, but they don't know that. Lucas arranges for them to live in a house with himself and his girlfriend Annabel (Jessica Chastain), a Joan Jett type who isn't a big fan of the whole "children" thing. Neither the less, she and the girls eventually start having a connection, which is a problem because Mama is still following them around. And she gets jealous.
Dude, don't go in the closet. You so know you do not want anything to do with anything that's in that closet. Just...stop.
There is some decent intrigue afoot as the mystery of who exactly Mama is and what she wants is decently engaging. And the suspense, enhanced by some fantastic lighting, camerawork, and (on occasion) subdued soundtrack is enough to warrant some halfway effective scares. That being said, there are a few too many jump scares which would have been more effective had they not relied on the orchestra sting, and the final mystery as to Mama's past and what she wants ends up being pretty old-hat. And to make it worse, what she wants ends up being not important at all, which tends to undermine the rest of the film leading up to the ending.
Ah, the ending. Before the ending 10 minutes came along, I was reasonably on board with "Mama." It wasn't great but I was interested. Then the ending hit and it became a Tim Burton movie. In fact, I'm pretty sure they got the same cliff from the end of "Dark Shadows." And while it did kind of make sense from a story perspective, the rest of the film had been relatively down-to-earth, at least as much as a ghost story can be, with a more claustrophobic setting of being trapped in a house with something that wants to kill you. Taking it to a showdown at the edge of a towing precipice seemed a little out of place.
"GREETINGS MORTAL. I AM THE VESSEL OF THE OUTER PLANES GOD. WE DEMAND MORE SPAGHETTI-O'S."
The ending isn't really what hurt "Mama" the most, however. What hurt this film more than anything else was the design of Mama herself. The movie makes a pretty severe error with not only showing way too much of her, but also making her look like a Muppet. I'm not even joking, she looks like a cartoon character with her elongated face, her close-set eyes, and weird twitchy mouth. And the terrible CG used to make her only enhances how ridiculous she looks, which is anything but scary.
Seriously, she looks like a ghost from "Luigi's Mansion."
I guess they were going for a surreal look to her, which is meant to be creepy, but whenever she appears all it does is destroy any tension the film had generated. At least, after you're done jumping from the obnoxious orchestra sting they inserted to artificially trick your body into thinking it's frightened. And after a moment late in the film when one of the characters gets killed and turned into a creature that resembles Mama, which was hilarious since she looked like Sam the Eagle if he were killed in "The Grudge," it's all downhill after that. There's no being scared of a monster that does that to people.
I will admit that I found Jessica Chastain to be alright in this, and she grew on me as the film went along despite being obnoxious at first glance. I'm still not a huge fan of hers though. I guess it's the same problem I have with Jennifer Lawrence. I just don't get the appeal. I am however a big fan of Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, and while he doesn't get as much to do here as I would have liked, seeing him is always awesome. The opening scene where he has lost his mind to the point of killing his kids (Nikolaj plays both brothers) is simply gut-wrenching, and the best part of the whole movie.
This whole problem could be solved nearly instantly if someone tossed the man a longsword.
Ironically it's the two little girls who steal the show from the two heavyweights. Megan Charpentier as the older sister Victoria had moments of outright brilliance as far as child acting goes, and the younger sister, Lily, played by Isabelle Nélisse deserves insane amounts of credit for being able to portray a fleshed out character with a vocabulary of about 5 words. Both of these girls are simply fantastic, and I'm interested to see where their careers take them. Between them and Morgana Davies from "The Hunter" it looks like there's a lot of talented young actresses to look forward to. Hopefully they won't pull a Carrie Henn and just disappear from acting after a promising start.
And yes, the only reason I bring her up is because Pvt. Spunkmeyer plays the psychologist in "Mama." And that's awesome.
For me the indie circuit is still one-upping the major releases as far as scary movies go. It's not that the major releases are bad, they're just formulaic. While that doesn't make them bad films necessarily, often times they're just kind of boring because of that. "Mama" suffers from that trap of being pretty easy to call, although I've seen it done much worse. Whether or not you think it's worth your time is up to you.
If only the actual movie was as subtle and slow building as the trailer was.
THE BOTTOM LINE - "Mama" is worth a rental if you don't expect too much from it. It's not very scary, at least not for me, but I could see it scaring the bejesus out of someone. At least it's got Jamie Lannister in it. And there are far worse horror films as of late. Far. Far. Worse.
I remember hearing about "The Hunter" back in 2011. I knew nothing about it at all, except for the fact that it starred Willem Dafoe and Sam Neill. And really, do you need more than that? I know I don't. Sam Neill has been a favorite of mine ever since "Jurassic Park," but once I saw him claw his eyes out of his skull in "Event Horizon" I was a die-hard fan. And Willem Dafoe is just a legend. I would watch a 90 minute film of him eating waffles. I have no idea what in the world you could do what that, but with Dafoe it'd be intense as hell.
So of course "The Hunter" never showed up in any theater that I was aware of, and it kind of just disappeared from my thoughts until recently when I saw it on the wall of my local Blockbuster. Score. That means my choice that night was easy.
After finally getting around to seeing this film, however, I find myself at a bit of a loss. Granted I went into this film without any preconceived notions besides the fact that two actors I really like are in it, but at the same time this wasn't at all what I was expecting. I went in expecting perhaps a thriller, maybe with Dafoe and Neill tracking and hunting each other, which would have been pretty awesome. Instead "The Hunter" is more one man's introspective journey as he rediscovers a bit of his humanity while working to destroy something that is pure, primal and rare - almost a reflection of himself.
So there's not going to be any knife fights between these two, then?
Well, okay I guess. It's not what I was expecting but that doesn't make it bad. And looking at it from an overall impression, I'd say "The Hunter" is an interesting, well crafted film, if a bit light on some crucial character development which ends up hurting the narrative somewhat. But it's still engaging and absolutely well acted, in addition to being very pretty to look at.
Martin (Willem Dafoe) is a mercenary who is hired by a bio-tech company to go to Tasmania and track down and gather the genetic material of the Tasmanian tiger, an animal long thought extinct. However, rumors abound of a lone tiger, and Martin doesn't much care about the creature besides getting a paycheck out of killing it. He poses as a researcher from a university and stays at the house of woman named Lucy (Frances O'Connor) and her children, Sass (Morgana Davies) and Bike (Finn Woodlock).
Sam Neill is Jack, a local man who guides Martin up into the wilderness before leaving him to do his own thing, since Martin doesn't like company, especially when what he's doing would not only get him arrested, but probably lynched by the local environmentalists who are in the midst of protesting all kinds of things. He also looks after Lucy and her family a bit, since her husband went out hunting months ago and never returned.
Martin runs into difficulties pretty quickly including the tiger being a very elusive quarry, no electricity for his equipment back at the house, local jerks smearing his car with poo, and Lucy being hopped up on pills to the point where she can't take care of the kids. It's during the second act that the hunting takes a bit of a back seat and we instead delve deeper into Martin's relationship with Lucy and her family. While initially Martin is respectful but cold and distant, the kids instantly take a liking to him, and eventually the walls start to come down a bit and he starts to grow attached.
"Sass, why does it say "Surrogate Father" over my bedroom door?"
From that point on the main drama of "The Hunter" becomes whether or not Martin is still willing or able to go through with killing the tiger after finding a reason to care. And after some ominous connections are discovered between himself and the missing father, the tiger itself has become less of a creature and more of a symbol for the things in his life that are missing. How can a man be expected to kill that?
As one would expect from an adaptation of a novel into a film, which this is, there is a bunch of symbolism throughout "The Hunter" if you wanted to put your film school pants on and pour yourself a glass of moscato and get all snooty. But that also ends up being the film's biggest handicap - which is that Martin's character is never really fleshed out enough to drive home those pivotal moments of development.
The problem is that Martin doesn't do a whole lot of talking, which makes perfect sense. He's out in the woods by himself for a lot of the film, so he doesn't have anyone to talk to. And Dafoe plays the part incredibly well, but there's not a good gauge on where he is as a character at any particular moment. I'm sure there's plenty of interior monologue in the book which is revealing, but here it's more like a guessing game as to his state of mind.
He's thinking of all those bright flowering young men at Khe Sanh, Langdok, and Hill 364. It's going to be a travesty.
This is never more apparent than at the end of the film, when he's forced to make the ultimate choice that the whole story has been leading up to. And when the choice is made it was more confusing as opposed to cathartic as to why he did what he did. Although it makes (some) sense when you think about it, it's still not incredibly satisfying, particularly after the film had dropped a HUGE bomb a little ways into the third act which nearly made the whole affair seem pointless. It's seriously a soul crushing moment, and is a slap in the face for many reasons.
Distracting from all the missing bits of character is the absolutely stunning landscape of Tasmania. There are few places more interesting to look at than Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand, and "The Hunter" looks on occasion like we've stepped onto some sets from "Lord of The Rings," only it's dark and brooding with far less excitement. But it's beautiful, none the less. And director Daniel Nettheim sure knows where to point the camera.
"Oolroyt then, Meesta Maht'n. This 'ere's the ployce. Beest speetin' cliff in Tasmoynia."
Lastly I'll call out the cast once again for some as usual excellent acting from Dafoe and Neill, although Neill is playing a far more relaxed character than I'm used to seeing him as. It was neat hearing him get to talk with his normal accent, though. Frances O'Connor was heartbreaking and loveable in addition to being really, really hot, and young Morgana Davies was one of the best kid actors I've seen in a while. I'll be on the lookout for her in the future, as I think she's got a solid career ahead of her.
So I didn't get any knife fights between Dafoe and Neill, but I still got something that was fairly competent and reasonably entertaining, if mostly because of the cast. I guess that's a fair use of my time. Is it overly harsh of me to really have wanted that knife fight, though?
The movie is nowhere near as intense as the trailer makes it out to be.
THE BOTTOM LINE - "The Hunter" is a deliberately paced drama that takes its time to build up tension and suspense, to varying degrees of success. It feels a bit abbreviated in terms of character development, and smacks of typical "The book was better" syndrome. A genuinely horrifying shock in the last act rescues it from being too plodding, at the cost of leaving the audience with something like a hollow feeling by the time the credits roll. But is it bad? No, despite that it's still worth a look.
So Michael Bay made a movie for $26 million, huh? That is brilliant. Absolute genius, and it needs to happen more often to more directors. Give James Cameron all his usual equipment, the best stuntmen Hollywood
can find and Arnold Schwarzenegger on the condition that he can't use
CGI at any point. Give him a year time limit, too, since he won't have to wait for the stuntmen to catch up with his vision. Give Spielberg 100 grand, an RV, Tom Hanks and an HD camera and send him on his way. Let's see what he does. Make Uwe Boll film a movie on a cell phone. Hell, it'd probably be a step up from his usual stuff.
It's no secret that I'm not a Michael Bay fan. I guess when I was a kid I was, but that's only because Bay's target audience is the lowest common denominator and stupid children. I think that even at that time I knew what I was watching wasn't very good, but man, when you're 15 years old "Armageddon" just speaks to you. I saw that mess in theaters twice, son. That blew my young mind. And of course "The Rock," which is arguably Bay's best film (although the only reason it's good is the cast) was a monument to my adolescence. Then he did "Transformers" and all affection for Bay was lost on me, with little chance of ever returning.
I think this was the moment when my childhood officially died.
I won't say that "Pain & Gain" has brought me back into the Michael Bay fold, so to speak, but you know something? This is good. This is a really, really, really good movie. And it's not only a testament to the actors involved, almost all of whom give award-worthy performances, not only a testament to the writers, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, for making a true, horrible story about true, horrible people actually hilarious, but it's also a testament to Michael Bay himself, because with "Pain & Gain" he has outed himself as a very good director when he wants to be. And yes, it pains me to say it, but it's true.
"Pain & Gain" is the "so insane it can only be true" story about a trio of lunkheaded body builders who wanted more out of life. After all, they deserve to live the American Dream. So they kidnapped a rich guy and stole all his stuff. This all led to some torture and cold-blooded murder, and saw two of them ending up on death row. They actually got away with it for a while, but that's mostly because the story was so bonkers that the Miami police didn't buy a word of it. Or they were incompetent. But it was probably a little bit of both.
Danny Lugo (Mark Wahlberg) is the ring leader of the group. He's unsatisfied with his job working as a trainer at a gym when, after attending a motivation seminar by a guy named Johnny Wu (Ken Jeong), he decides he's going to be a "doer" and not a "don'ter." That's when he develops his scheme to kidnap one of his clients, a rich guy named Victor Kershaw (Tony Shalhoub), and take all his stuff. He enlists the help of his friends Adrian (Anthony Mackie) and Paul (Dwayne Johnson), and after a few bungled attempts they nab Victor and hide him in a sex-toy factory for a month before they finally end up with all his money, after which they try to kill him. Of course, since they're idiots they can't even get that right, so Victor is left alive and seething for vengeance.
Even with $26 million, Bay still gets the "Walk away from an explosion all cool" moment.
His only problem is that the police don't believe him for various reasons and, despite dubious circumstances, all the paperwork he was forced to sign while imprisoned which handed his possessions over to Danny is technically legit. Victor hires a private investigator, Ed DuBois (Ed Harris) to get to the bottom of everything, who is the guy who eventually catches up to Danny and the others. Of course Ed is helped by the fact that Danny and the others are, once again, really stupid.
The cast is across the board fantastic. It's takes a lot of talent to make characters this unlikeable be this entertaining, and in some bizarre ways the portrayal makes them almost lovable. Naturally these are terrible people, but you can't help but love Mark Wahlberg and his bright-eyed sincerity. Almost every word out of his mouth is either a terrible idea or something dumb enough to split the Earth in half, but he says it with such innocence and such gravity that you believe that to his 'roided up core he believes every syllable of it.
Even as he's being led away to prison, he's telling the person who caught him that he should work on his quads. I love this guy.
The only person who threatens to steal Wahlberg's thunder is Dwayne Johnson. Now, everyone else was great. They were fantastic. But just in case anyone out there was not yet aware that Dwayne Johnson was a shockingly talented actor, here you go. At first he's the innocent, even dumber, born again Christian simpleton of the group, but as the movie goes on and he indulges in the decadent lifestyle he finds himself immersed in, the drugs and money and pressure and guilt start making him crack. And it doesn't take too long before he's doing more really stupid things, which cause the spiral to go down even further. Meanwhile you can see the cold panic that is setting in right under the surface of his tough guy exterior, but you get the feeling he's too stupid to understand any of it. It really is a stunning performance.
The cameraman attempted the world's most epic high five with Dwayne Johnson. These are his last recorded moments.
One thing that has always remained constant with Bay is his style. As much as I despise the vast majority of his films it can't be denied that he's got a visual thumbprint that is impossible to miss. You know from the first few frames of the film whether or not it's a Michael Bay film. And "Pain & Gain" is no different. The shaky cam, the frankly pointless bits of slow motion, the nearly fluorescent color scheme, lots of lens flares, and the upward angle low-shots and dutch angels that have come to be his trademark are all here. It looks just like "Transformers" but without robots and Shia LaBeouf's stupid face.
And while visually it does border on obnoxious, had this been a first time director I wouldn't have minded. I would have just thought it was a guy with a strong and unique visual calling card, like David Fincher or Stephen Spielberg. I think I only find it obnoxious because it reminds me of other films I despise, which is distracting. I'm sitting there laughing my fool head off at Wahlberg, but in the back of my mind I'm dreading that any moment Skids and Mudflap will show up with fried chicken, watermelon and Kool-Aide.
That brings me to my biggest complaint about "Pain & Gain" - some of the humor. This is not only a Michael Bay movie in visual style, but also on occasion crap that's not really funny. This is a tableau of all the usual testosterone infused sexism, homophobia, bigotry and misogyny present in all his works, only it's cranked up to such levels that it makes me think that it's potentially satirical. I can't really tell. If that's the case it puts a whole new light on his other works, but suggesting that perhaps his brain-dead brand of machismo is a kind of parody is probably giving him too much credit.
That's his chainsawin' shower cap.
There's no way that it's a coincidence that so much of this film is hysterical, while also containing gags that are note-for-note the kind of sophomoric idiocy that we've seen time and time again with his films. The writers are talented, after all they are the duo that wrote "Captain America" and both "Thor" films. I find it hard to believe that they would have a fat man blasting poo all over a hospital bathroom after getting an enema, a priest coming on to Dwayne Johnson, Rob Corddry thinking that Walhberg telling him to "star 69" a guy means having sex with him, or a little person showing up to threaten Wahlberg and Johnson with a bat just because, well, little people are apparently hilarious. That crap is classic Michael Bay, and we've seen it time and time before with him.
I think it's those moments of non sequitur shenanigans that have nothing to do with anything that were put in there by Bay himself. They had to be. The rest of "Pain & Gain" is clearly parody. It's a bit mean spirited and by extension stupid because the characters are stupid, but one thing it isn't is nonsensical. Those random episodes of idiocy that reek of Michael Bay are too dumb to be satire. He's just getting in the way of the talented writers. It'd be like if Seth MacFarlane had been on the writing staff of "Blazing Saddles." All of a sudden Gene Wilder and Cleavon Little would step into a recreation of the music video for Toto's "Africa," because that makes sense, and we're all supposed to laugh because "the 80's."
But just as soon as that crap is over we usually cut to something awesome like Dwayne Johnson grilling human hands, so it all kind of evens out.
Even with those things in there, the rest of "Pain
& Gain" is honestly kind of brilliant. And I think I've figured out
why I liked these characters so much and had such a good time when in
another Michael Bay movie I would have hated it. The reason is because
unlike Shia LaBeouf or the rest of the cast in the "Transformers"
series, we are never meant to like Wahlberg and Johnson. They are
terrible people, but "Pain & Gain" doesn't insult us by trying to
make us root for them. We don't necessarily want bad things to happen to
them because they're so entertaining in their awfulness, but if they
were to get caught we'd probably say "Well, they had it coming, the
idiots." The horrible things they do are easier to laugh at when we're
not expected to be on their side like they're the good guys. Does "Pain & Gain" make me a Michael Bay fan? Hell no. Are you high? I still think his movies are generally borderline hate-crimes against anyone with a brain-stem. But let it not be said that I'm not merciful, because I always give credit where credit is due. This is a good movie. And Michael Bay directed. True, it might be good in spite of him, but it's still good. Now if he can just get away from CGI robots and do more stuff like this, maybe I won't consider scheduling eye removal surgery whenever another one of his films comes out.
Check out the trailer for "Pain & Gain." It's a pretty good representation of what the movie is like. (Red band trailer so NSFW)
THE BOTTOM LINE - "Pain & Gain" is a bit niche based on how utterly sleazy and mean spirited it is, but if you're someone who can appreciate some dark humor than this film is an absolute blast. I'm not completely sure, but this may be my favorite Michael Bay movie. Even if you hate him as a director, I'm seriously recommending this one. Crom help me, this might make my Top 10 of 2013. Trust me, I'm as surprised as you.
I'm not going to lie, I went into this one with not a small amount of trepidation. While watching the ads in front of "John Dies At The End" I happened to see a trailer for "Sushi Girl," and I was taken in by its grindhouse, retro vibe. This looked like a hip movie that had a great sense of style. The sleazy, almost dank color palate, the looming sense of building dread, the slimy evil dripping off the tongues of the characters about to hurt this poor guy, and the fantastic churning rock at the end - this was a fantastic trailer, and I was very interested in seeing it.
But on the other hand, I hate torture films. They're just not my thing, Although I can handle violence in movies just fine, when it comes to torture that's kind of a deal breaker for me in many cases. It all depends on whether or not the focus is on the torture and violence or on the story. Movies like the first "Saw" are fine, because it's more about the story rather than how disgusting they could make the carnage. Then you've got "Hostel" and the "Saw" sequels which are the exact opposite, with no subtlety to be found. I don't dig on that. And based on the trailer for "Sushi Girl," I wasn't sure which kind of movie it was going to be, and I was kind of nervous.
But on the other hand again, Mark Hamill. I didn't even realize it was him in the trailer until they did a roll call of the actors at the end. I did a double take, and then watched the trailer again. My god, that was Mark Hamill, wasn't it? He's nearly unrecognizable, but there he is. You can even hear the Joker voice in there a little bit. And at that point I knew I was watching it. I don't care what the level of violence is, if it means seeing Mark Hamill in front of a camera again, I'm so there. I just had to hope that the movie was decent.
I'm not going to make a Luke Skywalker reference. That's too easy. I'm going to instead make a "Time Runner" reference. Um...who's that on the table, Rae Dawn Chong?
(Nailed it!)
I guess I should take more chances, because "Sushi Girl" ended up being good. Really good. Shockingly good, actually. In fact it's one of my favorite movies I've seen this year so far. "Sushi Girl" is one of those films that, after seeing it, I find myself scrounging the video store and Amazon.com for more movies like it. It's got me on a bit of an exploitation movie kick. I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more sleaze. Of course I'm unlikely to stumble across another movie this good, but you can't know until you try.
"Sushi Girl" follows a very unfortunate night in the life of Fish (Noah Hathaway), a man who has just been released from prison after doing 6 years for a robbery gone bad. However, the other men who were involved have pressing issues to discuss with Fish. Most pressing of all is the whereabouts of the diamonds that went missing during the heist. Fish always claimed to have no idea what happened to them, but I'll leave it up to you to decide how much they believe that story. So, the leader of the group, Duke (Tony Todd) sets up a little Welcome Back dinner for Fish, complete with all his old robbery buddies, a bunch of instruments that could be used for torture, one very simple question, and one naked girl laying on the table covered in sushi.
A "Sushi Girl," if you will.
It doesn't take long for Fish to understand what's about to go down, and it only takes slightly longer for the guys to start going to work on him. Leading the torture are Max (Andy Mackenzie) and Crow (Mark Hamill), two guys that hate each others guts, but are willing to work together, at least for a little bit, to get their cut of the diamonds. They're unsurprisingly the most psycho of the bunch, as they're making $5,000 bets with each other to see who will be the first one to torture Fish into talking, which means they're upping the ante with each round as Fish refuses to crack.
All of the cast was fantastic, and all of them got their moments to shine. Noah Hathaway has this great fatalistic, defeated presence that suggests that maybe on some level, Fish thinks he deserves what he's getting. Or at least, he's so broken and beaten down that he just doesn't care anymore. Tony Todd is as always creepy as hell, and James Duval as Francis, the reluctant member of the crew who isn't down on the torture, gives an ironically tortured performance as the one guy with something close to a soul. You can imagine how well that works out for him.
But the guys stealing the show were of course Mackenzie and Hamill. The two of them are like fire and ice - with Mackenzie being barely contained napalm ready to rip out Fish's eyeballs straight away if it means getting the loot, and Hamill taking his time with it, savoring it, and having fun as he stares laser beams over the rims of his dorky glasses into Fish's soul like he's ready to pluck the wings off of it to watch it squirm after he gouges it out of his body with a pair of pliers. Mark Hamill is absolutely phenomenal in "Sushi Girl." And by himself, he makes this worth watching.
Don't take my word for it, though. Check out this little clip. (It cuts off before "ouch" happens)
And despite the fact that she spends 95% of the movie laying naked on table doing nothing and doesn't have any dialogue until the last 10 minutes, the beautiful Cortney Palm as the eponymous Sushi Girl certainly makes you take notice of her. And when she gets something to do, it's clear that this still obscure actress is someone to be on the lookout for, because she could have quite the career in genre films if she lucks out and keeps getting roles in movies like this.
One final word on the cast that I had to geek the hell out over was a flashback scene featuring not only Jeff Fahey, and not only Danny Trejo, but also one of my all-time favorites, Michael Biehn. They don't get to do much, true, but it was still amazing to see them just show right the hell up like it was a "Grindhouse" mini-reunion. And Danny Trejo has a machete (of course he does). It's pretty legit.
But what of the torture? That's what I was worried about, after all. It's true that "Sushi Girl" gets pretty intense. But fortunately it didn't get as hardcore as I had feared it would get. This is by no means a movie for the squeamish or for those with weak constitutions, though, as any film featuring a man getting mercilessly smacked in the face over and over again with a sock full of broken glass would probably require the viewer to have something of a strong stomach. But at the same time, these are relatively brief bursts of violence which have a big amount of buildup, but once initiated don't last overly long or get overly graphic in their depiction. At the end of the day, this is "a movie with torture in it" as opposed to "a movie about torture." There's a big difference.
Comparisons to Quentin Tarantino films are inevitable, specifically "Reservoir Dogs." After all, it's about a bunch of criminals of varying degrees of psycho, a diamond heist is the central conflict, most of the movie is in a single location with the exception of flashbacks, there's a dude tied to a chair getting tortured, a lot of gun pointing starts happening at the end, all while having a very distinct sheen of drive-in movie grit. Even the ending revelations have "Kill Bill" vibes. This is obviously made by someone who is a big Tarantino fan. The insane part is that there are those out there who would call that a bad thing.
Please. It's nothing like "Reservoir Dogs." Fish didn't get his ear cut off.
It's true that some might lazily condemn "Sushi Girl" as a "Reservoir Dogs" knockoff, but that's really not giving it the credit it deserves. There are really big differences in structure, pacing, cinematography, visual style, and acting between the two films. That's not even bringing up the most distinct Tarantino trademark - the dialogue, which "Sushi Girl" wisely doesn't even try to emulate. Apart from the fact that they both feel retro and might make a decent double feature with each other, the only thing connecting them are the superfluous plot similarities. To me they feel like two extraordinarily different films. Even if "Sushi Girl" does feature kung-fu legend Sonny Chiba as a sushi chef, just like in "Kill Bill." I'm willing to call that an awesome coincidence.
I love movies like "Sushi Girl." Those little movies nobody has ever heard of that come right the hell out of nowhere and take you by surprise. These movies remind us that good movies are still being made by the bucket-full. We just need to look outside the movie theaters for them sometimes.
If you see this trailer and are intrigued in any way, seriously see this movie. It's just as stylish and awesome as it seems here (Red Band trailer so technically NSFW)
THE BOTTOM LINE - I loved this movie. It's got loads of style, great intrigue, tension, effective and hard-hitting violence, and fantastic, memorable performances all around. This is probably making my Top 10 list for 2013. It's a serious contender, at any rate.
It's at this point that I wonder if I'm the right person to be writing about the Marvel movies. True, it's not like I was assigned this or anything, but you know what I mean. After Phase 1 of Marvel's plan reached its conclusion with "The Avengers," and out of the 6 films in that series, I was blown away by a grand total of 1 of them, it started becoming clear that perhaps I'm just not a Marvel guy. I just don't get the rabid, slavering praise they usually receive.
Maybe I need to read the comics to truly "get it," but I've never
been a comic book fan. I just watch the movies and hope that there won't
be too much stuff that flies over my head. This usually doesn't work
out. I just assume every time the audience I'm seeing it with freaks out
and applauds over a character appearing that they're someone important.
This may hinder me from getting the same level of enjoyment from the
film that they do, but at least I'm not subject to the same insane nerd
rage they have whenever they see the next great "ultimate betrayal."
I'm sure I'd feel the same way about Deadpool, friend, but fortunately I don't even know who that is.
With "Iron Man 3" I was excepting to have a really good time. Hopefully. However there was a bit of apprehension on my part, considering that even though I love Robert Downey Jr., the character of Tony Stark has been steadily sliding down the scale towards irreverent, obnoxious comic relief. Yes, I know he's always been a snarky smart-ass but Joss Whedon took him so far in that direction in "The Avengers" that he should have just dressed like Oscar Wilde and had a rimshot after every line.
Actually, "The Importance of Being Ernest" would have been way better with robots.
I was very relived to find that "Iron Man 3" did indeed drop pretty much all of the camera mugging that Tony Stark had been doing in his last few outings, and instead had him act like a human being who doesn't have something witty to say after every single thing that's said. Now it's only about 50%, which means it's still a lot, but coming from 98% in "The Avengers" it seems almost dour.
Unfortunately this is one of those instances where I have to once again be a big buzzkill and go against the common consensus when it comes to the Marvel franchise. Like most of the rest of the films before it, there isn't too much glowing praise I can give "Iron Man 3" because it was just okay. It wasn't bad, by any means. This is a well directed, well acted film that has a great look and style to it. Hell, it's by Shane Black, who is a director I really like. The craftsmanship on display is admirable. I can not take that away.
But at the same time I'm having trouble remembering much about it. Some of that has to do with the fact that I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of these characters, which made the story kind of hard to follow. Some of that has to do with some clumsy storytelling. And some of it has to do with me being kind of bored through a portion of it.
After "The Avengers," Tony Stark is suffering from some PTSD, which is understandable since he almost died. He can't sleep, is getting even weirder than normal, and eventually starts getting full blown panic attacks. Throughout the film he tries to come to terms with all that, which serves as his character arc here. I do have to give the "Iron Man" trilogy credit for having Tony Stark evolve as a character with each film.
The actual plot has to do with The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley), a shadowy Osama bin Laden type figure who is doing a pretty good job of blowing up a lot of stuff without getting caught. There is also an epidemic of exploding people going on which seems to be connected to The Mandarin. After his friend and head of security, Happy Hogan (John Favreau) gets severely hurt in one the attacks, Tony foolishly calls The Mandarin out, only to get his house blown up and all his stuff wrecked.
Oh man. This was ill-advised.
A side story that eventually takes center stage is a scientist named Alrich Killian (Guy Pearce). He's working on technology that will allow people to rapidly heal themselves, and also turn themselves into 3000 degree walking infernos if they feel like it. That's a hell of a side effect, but there you go. That's a real scientist in action, folks. There is no thing in science which doesn't lead to horrible, world-ending abominations of mankind.
"Hey man. Do you want science or not?"
So we've got The Mandarin blowing stuff up, Killian doing science that assures that he'll be a villain, and Tony traipsing around Tennessee trying to fix his suit. Eventually everything comes together and we get a showdown with these walking fireballs and a whole lot of Iron Man suits that are all fully capable of fighting without anyone inside. This is all fine, and fulfills the requisite number of explosions, at least in the third act when the action thankfully kicks in after a pretty talky first two acts.
I will praise "Iron Man 3" for Tony getting to show off his ingenuity after he is deprived of his suit, and must construct a bunch of makeshift weapons that come across like if Red Green had to make an machine like that. True, there was no duct tape that you could see, but I'm pretty sure there was probably some in there somewhere. Either way it was fun to see him go DIY after we're used to him pulling the most random bits of super technology out of his ass like the computerized version of Batman's utility belt.
"If they can't find you handsome, they might as well find you capable of improvising lethal weaponry."
I will say that Guy Pearce is doing a very good job of turning me around on my opinion of him. For a very long time I thought he was at best an average actor but lately he's really been busting his ass proving me wrong. In this film he's quietly intimidating to great effect, and he was actually a lot of fun to watch. Even though he character going from the mindset of helping mankind to terrorism just because a rich jerk snubbed you once seems like a rather severe leap. I'm just saying.
Ben Kingsley as The Mandarin was...interesting. When he's being the cold, ruthless terrorist he's perfectly evil, as Kingsley is an old hand at villainy to say the least. Then the character is taken in a slightly bizarre direction, and while it seems out of nowhere and probably a departure from how he is in the comics (I have to assume), I have to admit to getting a lot of entertainment out of him in the second half of the film.
The Mandarin could be either a terrorist or the singer for an awesome power metal band.
Gwyneth Paltrow was alright I guess. Pepper Potts was always kind of a nothing character for me, personally, as I'm not quite sure why she's there because she doesn't really do anything. But at least here she serves more of a purpose when she gets kidnapped and is the focus of a "shocking moment" that was effective for all of two seconds before I called what was going to happen after. I was a bigger fan of Rebecca Hall, because even though she's kind of pointless too, she is gorgeous while doing so. Not that Gwyneth isn't easy on the eyes as well but Rebecca Hall is so hot you could cook a steak on her.
Medium rare, please. :D
The only person I didn't care for was Harley, a little geeky child played by Ty Simpkins. Ty is a fine young actor who was good in "Insidious" but I was not a fan of Harley. He's obnoxious and can't physically shut up. There's a scene where he ends up giving Tony a panic attack after rattling all these questions about the alien invasion at him, and I almost felt sick to my stomach - not because I had PTSD but because I wanted to punch him so hard that it caused me pain. I will admit that the chemistry between him and Downey Jr. was great, though. You can tell they had a lot of fun.
You know, all of this adds up to a fine film. It's entertaining, it's well acted, and it's seldom dull. So why aren't I aglow with praise? I'm not sure, really. I think it just goes back to me not really caring overly much about the Marvel franchise. And at the end of the day, if I can't recall a good majority of the film a mere day after seeing it, what does that say?
"That you have a moderate to severe head injury?"
I'm not sure. I don't know what my deal is with these movies. But whatever my issue, it probably means I'm going to get a lot more people telling me I'm dead wrong. Fine, whatever. Start the nerd rage. Take a number. I'm going to be over here, watching "The Dark Knight Rises."
Here's the trailer for "Iron Man 3," in case you've been under a rock for 6 months.
THE BOTTOM LINE - "Iron Man 3" is a competent movie. It's fine. It's well done. And it's fading from my memory so quickly it's difficult to remember many of the praises or various issues I had with it. I can't see myself watching it again, although I'm not upset that I saw it. I honestly have very few feelings towards it whatsoever. So if my apathy isn't condemnation, by all means consider this a recommendation.
You know, I've seen some weird stuff in movies. Some of them have been horrible. Some have been hilarious. And some have been just plain strange. Whenever I see something that leaves an impression on me, for good or bad, I'm usually glad I saw it. At the very least, I'll give a film credit for showing me something that I can say "Well, I've never seen that before" in regards to. Even if I didn't like the film, I still gives me something that I can pull out during a conversation in order for me to say something like "Oh yeah? I've seen a zombie eat its own intestines."
With "John Dies At The End," I find myself with a bit of a conundrum. On one hand, it was by far and away one of the most unique, surprising and unpredictable movies I've ever seen. For that reason alone I can say that I'm glad I saw it. This is hands down a movie going experience that's unlike anything else I've come across. And honestly, I would recommend anyone who likes interesting films to go and see it.
On the other hand, this movie is a train wreck. And the more I think back on it, the more and more I dislike "John Dies At The End." So much so that the entertainment I was admittedly getting out of the movie while watching it seems less and less important in retrospect. It's so frustrating to reflect on or dissect or make any kind of sense of it that it just makes me want to throw my hands up and decide it's not even worth it, because from a story telling standpoint this movie is an absolute catastrophe. And honestly, I can't recommend anyone seeing it.
It's all quite confusing.
The plot of "John Dies At The End" is so obfuscated and random that it gets to the point of being either just as pretentious and self-absorbed as any Terrence Malick wank-fest, or so unpretentious that it screams out at you "Of course this doesn't make sense. Why should it? Let's have fun." The ironic thing is that either way, the film reaches the same end-point. It still ends up collar-bone deep up its own rectum.
The concept of "John Dies At The End" is that there a drug (or alien life-form or something from another dimension or whatever it is) called 'Soy Sauce' that allows you to see through time. Or dimensions. Or be psychic. Or be able to exorcize ghosts. Or aliens. Or both. Or it allows you to travel to other dimensions. Or time. Or both. Or it kills you. Or it doesn't. Or it does both. Or all of the damn above.
Pretty much, yeah.
Anyway, our main character Dave (Chase Williamson) and the titular John (Rob Mayes) take this drug/alien/whatever and proceed to then freak out as all kinds of bizarre and unexplainable randomness starts happening to them. This includes a mustache prying itself off of someone's face to try and kill Dave, a freezer full of meat coming alive to form some kind of flesh golem, people exploding as alien spores burst out of them, John apparently dying only to come back for some unexplained reason, and Dave using a bratwurst as a phone. There's also this other world with an all-knowing, Lovecraftian monster that likes to eat people to gain their knowledge. I don't know. All of this is supposed to make sense. I think.
I know that all sounds amazing, but really, it's just weird for weird's sake.
Maybe I'm stupid, but that's seriously the best I can do to explain "John Dies At The End" because I am at a total loss to do more. The film suffers from the worst case of "Movie ADHD" I can recall seeing. But the odd thing is that in the moment you are watching it, each moment makes sense in of itself. "John Dies At The End" is less of a overarching cohesive narrative and more of a collection of ideas that twist and wind and blend into each other well enough to feel organic, but not enough to make anything close to a coherent story.
The problem is that due to the nature of Soy Sauce, chronology in "John Dies At The End" is pretty much a wash, as the film is somewhat tailored around the idea that time is essentially meaningless, and the film seems to go back and forth with no warning in regards to sequences of events. At least that's how it seemed to me. Add to the fact that most (?) of the film is told in flashbacks because Dave is telling someone a story, but it's near impossible to tell what's a flashback and what's in the future and what's happening right then and now, and there's never a clear sense of time or sequence of events. As a consequence the plot was also never clear. Again, I know that's fitting to the themes, but for me it's a little difficult to care about anything when I have no grasp on what's going on.
The best part of the film for me, and about the only thing that comes close to being a reasonably well-conveyed sequence is the interview that punctuates the film. Every once in a while we go back to Dave, who is telling his story to a journalist, Arnie (Paul Giamatti). Arnie is obviously skeptical of everything Dave is telling him, as it's nutter than a Payday bar, but as the story keeps going and Dave demonstrates his abilities, Arnie becomes a believer. All of this leads to an admittedly fantastic twist near the end of the movie, and if it had tied itself in to the plot of the film (had there actually been one) then it would have been doubly nice, especially since Giamatti tears it the hell up. But as it is his stuff ultimately ends up being pretty pointless.
Why can't Paul Giamatti be fantastic in a movie I like?
At least Giamatti got a lot of screen time. Two other actors I like were also in this, but end up being varying degrees of worthless. Doug Jones, also known as "That Guy in Full Body Makeup in Every Movie You've Ever Seen" got to actually show his face as this creepy looking dude who I think was supposed to be an alien. I'm not sure who/what he was, but he puts a giant slug type thing down Dave's shirt and says nonsensical stuff. I'm not sure why he's there. He's kind of like those aliens from "Galaxy Quest," only without a purpose for existing.
I'm also going to lay down a New Rule here and state for the record that if your movie has Clancy Brown in it, you use him, damn it. Clancy Brown is awesome, and he WILL be utilized to the best of his considerable talents! If a film isn't smart enough to give the guy who was The Freaking Kurgan more than 2 minutes of screen-time and a handful of throwaway lines that accomplishes nothing, than you need to have your film-making privileges suspended until you learn the value of a good cast.
I will say this in its defense, however. "John Dies At The End" is beautiful to look at. The colors are bright and vibrant, there's a great sense of style which makes the dreamlike states of mind of our characters both fascinating and somewhat horrifying to look at, and there is so much imagination and creativity going on in every frame that it's really something to behold. And despite my hangups it was never, ever boring. I was invested from beginning to end, which is a sizable accomplishment considering how aggravated I was at the narrative.
I cannot take away how pretty this movie is.
I'm sure that there's an audience for this movie. I can think of several of my good friends who would like it, and possibly love it. But I am not among them. And it's not that it's a bad film or even poorly made, because it's actually a gorgeous, brilliantly shot and put together film. After all it's by Don Coscarelli, the guy who directed "Bubba Ho-Tep." There's mad talent going on here, both in front of and behind the camera. But this is just too much crazy stuff at the expense of the plot, and that bugs me way too much. I appreciate the film's gusto and imagination and craftsmanship, but my limit for weird for weird's sake ends at "Aqua Teen Hunger Force." At least that's funny.
The trailer makes this look far too coherent.
THE BOTTOM LINE - "John Dies At The End" is a well-made, bizarre movie that is either going to blow you away with its imagination or infuriate you completely with its lunacy. For those of you who don't much care if anything makes sense. In the moment, it's mesmerizing. In hindsight, it's obnoxious. But hey, I've never seen anything quite like it. I just wish I knew what was going on.
So we finally come to the end of the original run of "The Prophecy" series with "The Prophecy 3: The Ascent." I can't say my expectations we exceedingly high for this one, despite the intriguing ending of "The Prophecy II" and the return of Christopher Walken for his last outing as Gabriel. I guess at this point I'm just expecting a steady decrease in quality as sequels continue. That's probably a healthy attitude to have.
Were my lowered expectations required for this one? Well, there's good news and bad news. The good news is that it wasn't as bad as I had feared. At the very least, it didn't make me mad while watching it. Most of the time. The bad news is that the only reason it wasn't as bad as I feared was because I was expecting something along the lines of "The Touch of Satan," only without Mike Nelson making it hilarious. So anything would have been a step up from that.
That may be a little harsh, to be perfectly honest. It's not that "The Prophecy 3" was a train-wreck, it's just that the train made an uneventful trip across the country without any major delays or problems. It arrived at it's destination on time, and nearly every passenger slept for the majority of the journey. And when they're asked by relatives waiting at the station "How was your trip?" they will say "It was fine. They had good sandwiches at the food bar." That's the level of enthusiasm I have with this thing. It's right up there with the inane small talk you're forced to make in polite company you can't swear in front of. True, the train didn't go off the rails, but at least that would have been more interesting.
Shockingly, no. Not even this bit of randomness makes for an entertaining film.
If you couldn't tell by that tenuous analogy, the problem with this film is that it was not very memorable. It's only notable for how bland it was, and the fact that I can use the word "bland" to describe a movie starring Christopher Walken is probably the biggest offense of all. And to my surprise, one of the biggest reasons for it being bland is a direct consequence of the ending of "The Prophecy II," which I was a fan of. But I'll get back to that in a bit. For now just remember that Christopher Walken is no longer a powerful angel.
The third film picks up about 18 years after the end of the second one. At the end of that film, Gabriel was turned into a human by either God or Eric Roberts (it was hard to tell), as punishment for his hubris and betrayal. In the time since then, he's learned how to drive, learned to kind of like humanity, and has learned how to grow hair like that witch in "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves." So he's just chilling, enjoying being a human. He has also been (kind of) looking after Danyael (Dave Buzzotta), the human/angel child from the end of the second movie. His mother Valerie, the main character from the that film, has died in the time between after a seemingly random mob burned down their house, leaving her dead and him unscathed since he's impossible to kill unless you remove his heart, being half angel.
Now we find that the forces of heaven are still at war, and they once again need an ace in the hole to turn the conflict. Enter the fray Zophael (Vincent Spano), an angel who's loyalty is obviously to the side of "Kill All Humans," but whose motivations I never really got apart from "He's the bad guy." From what I gather he's attempting to resurrect Pyriel, the Angel of Genocide, who will arise to eradicate mankind. Pyriel was the angel who lead God's army against Lucifer in the first war. How Pyriel died, how he has risen, who if anyone is responsible for that, why he is now on the side of the rebel angels, why they never tried this before if he's so powerful, and why apparently only Danyael can stop him is left completely unexplained, at least for as much as I understood the plot here.
Just a couple simple questions, here, buddy. Who are you? What are you doing? How did you get here? And why is this the first I've heard of you?
So what it all boils down to is that Danyael goes to the desert to stop Pyriel, while Zophael kidnaps Danyael's girlfriend Maggie, lies to her that Pyriel's resurrection is a good thing, and gets her to give him a ride to try and stop Danyael from stopping Pyriel. So much like the other two films, "The Prophecy 3" is a chase movie featuring an angel being chauffeured around in a car out to the middle of nowhere by someone who hates their guts. Says something for consistency, I guess.
And while it was kind of a neat thing that angels in this series can't drive cars since it's just not their thing, a pretty big question I had since the first film has to be addressed at some point here: Why don't the angels fly? They have wings. I don't know where the angels hide them under their black trench coats, but I've seen them. Wouldn't flying be much faster than driving? Why is Zophael even running after Danyael when they're on foot? Danyael doesn't have wings. Zophael does. If you want to stop him, just fly and catch up to him. Whatever. Stupid nitpick, I know, but it's still irritating to me.
In the background doing essentially nothing throughout all this is Gabriel, who just drives around in his convertible. And then he stops by that diner from the first film and orders a big breakfast. At least I understood that bit, although there's probably a deleted scene somewhere with a prophecy about whether he was going to order the buttermilk or blueberry pancakes.
"And lo! it was foretold that he of Doc Brown hair and saggy face would feast upon the Grand Slam and a pot of half-caf." GEN 15:27
And finally, we reach the end of the movie. Danyael confronts Pyriel in a showdown that had the potential to be cool and visually interesting. But unfortunately it winds up seeming more like a fighting game tutorial teaching you how to do your finishing move for as one sided as it is and for as long as it lasts, while looking like the background glitched out and was just solid black. And then, because that wasn't unsatisfying enough, Danyael is literally saved by a bolt of lighting out of the sky, sent directly by God to help Danyael defeat Pyriel.
What.
Well, if God always had the capacity to do that, then why in the name of holy crackers didn't he do that from the get-go? And you can't tell me that old "His ways are mysterious" story because that makes no sense. They say at the end of the movie that Pyriel's defeat signals the end of the war. If striking Pyriel down was always an option, why go through the whole rigamarole of thousands of years of horrible conflict and countless deaths and destruction? What an ass!
And you can't tell me that humanity had to be the ones to do it because Danyael is not fully human, and even if he was, they didn't because at the end God strikes down Pyriel anyway. I'm not even going to get too into the issue of no human soul reaching heaven before that point because of this conflict. But I'm just saying that when you consider that, according to the mythology, God went through all that trouble to send Jesus down to absolve humanity of its sins, only to have another easily fixable situation arise to throw a wrench into the whole plan, it kind of makes God look either lazy, incompetent, or like a big jerk. But that's just me.
It makes him seem less like a divine creator and more like a crappy
roommate who never does anything. He never takes out the trash, never
cleans the dishes, never buy groceries, never walks the dog, and always
leaves his excess weed trimmings all over the living room table. And
then one day he takes down a phone message for you in overly exacting
detail and expects that to make up for the time he left a bowl of mac n'
cheese in the sink for two weeks until it crusted over and attracted
ants.
"Dude, come on. I left a post-it note on the fridge. You're welcome, by the way. Hey, could you give me a ride to and from work tomorrow? They got me working the night shift. I need to be there at 3 AM. Thanks, bro. You can pick me up at 10."
That's always been my biggest issue with this series. The story makes absolutely no sense, and I seldom follow the plot while watching it. It's only afterwards when I hop on Wikipedia and read the synopsis that I say to myself "Is THAT what was going on here? Dang, religion makes stuff dumb and confusing." I say that without trying to be offensive to anyone, but you can't argue that the insane amount of contradictions, self-fulfilling prophecies and nonsense explained with the catch-all "God is mysterious" excuse does not make for a very cohesive narrative. This is doubly so when one does something stupid like apply logic to something that is by its very nature illogical.
At this point I'd like to return, finally, to what I was saying earlier about what I felt was the biggest issue with "The Prophecy 3," which was what they did with Christopher Walken's character. The worst offense this movie did was to take Gabriel's powers away and make him a good guy. It's not until you've seen a movie in this series without the madcap antics of crazy, evil Walken that you realize how important that is to the entertainment value of these films. Let's be honest, these were never fantastic movies, but the character of Gabriel was such a memorable badass that he made the first films worth watching by himself alone.
Now what do we have? Gabriel has been relegated to being a side character who doesn't do anything because he can't do anything. He can't even offer assistance in a fight apart from running into someone with his car, which he does, but after that he immediately gets his ass handed to him by Zophael, who doesn't kill him for the sole reason that he's so pathetic that it's not worth either his time or energy. And Gabriel just sits there and smiles like he's managed to accomplish something by becoming meeker than Zophael when he used to be the Angel of Death.
Oh yeah. Serene and contemplative. That's how I like my Christopher Walken. I also like to garnish my pizza with a single saltine cracker.
It's not that Gabriel's redemption is a bad character arc, because it's not. It's just not something I'm interested in seeing in this film. Or at least they way it was done here. Had I been in charge of the script I would have kept Gabriel human, but he'd still be attempting to eradicate humanity by resurrecting Pyriel. Had he been the villain instead of Zophael the plot could have been nearly the same, and his redemption could have been slowly building throughout until the end, when he could fully realize the error of his ways. That way his character development could have actually been seen during the film as opposed to off screen between movies.
Honestly there wasn't a good thing I can say about anyone else in the cast, either. Christopher Walken is wasted, Dave Buzzotta is a poor man's Edward Furlong, and Vincent Spano does his best to come off like Gael Garcia Bernal, but again it's just not working that well. Although Spano isn't honestly that bad, especially when he is forced to act next to the worst actor in the film, Kayren Butler as Danyael's girlfriend. She reminded me a bit of Shannon from "Lost," only with less talent than even Maggie Grace and the bizarre ability to seemingly teleport in and out of scenes at random due to the power of bad script writing and confusing editing.
And by the way, any movie that casts Brad Dourif as a crazy person and kills him off after 5 minutes and about 3 lines can officially kiss my ass. I don't care if there's a scene later where a dude licks his corpse's eyeball. If Brad can't react to it, I'm not interested.
Danyael is the only 32 year old 18 year old in the world.
Oh, and Moriah 'Shining Dove' Snyder is back as Mary. She's a bit more grown up now. She still isn't a good actress, but she's only in it for 25 seconds. She has a little speech that barely has any context to anything we've been seeing, doesn't do a damn thing, and basically wastes our time. But hey, this thing is only like 80 minutes long already. I guess something had to pad it out. I'm sure she wasn't doing anything else as these movies have been pretty much the only thing she's ever been in.
And who in the blue hell ascended in this movie subtitled "The Ascent?" It wasn't Danyael, because he's still on Earth. It wasn't Pyriel because his ascent was stopped cold. Was it Gabriel? I guess that makes sense, but that seems an odd choice because he's not even the main character, or even that important to the story. And his ascent and forgiveness is only the last 20 seconds of the movie. Seems an odd thing to subtitle your movie after. That'd be like calling it "Star Wars Episode IV: Luke Gets a Medal."
Of course the real answer is that it's a cool word that sounds ominous but means jack-diddly. I think that's a requirement for naming sequels in Hollywood. I still don't know why they couldn't just leave it at "The Prophecy 3." Or why they used the number 3 instead of Roman numerals considering the last movie did. Or why this is the last film in the series to be numbered at all. I guess it's really easy to tell which comes next chronologically - "The Prophecy: Uprising" or "The Prophecy: Forsaken." Come on, isn't it clearly obvious which one comes next? What are you, dense?
Does nobody put forth the slightest bit of effort with this stuff? And why am I constantly surprised by the fact that they don't?
Want to see something funny? Watch that chick attempt to act in the trailer. And then despair. She's in the whole movie.
THE BOTTOM LINE - "The Prophecy 3: The Ascent" is clearly a big step down from the sequel, which in itself was just okay. Despite some interesting imagery it never manages to become more than the same stuff we've seen before, only without the benefit of having a good cast or giving Walken fun things to do, and it's just a boring movie. Considering that the plot is nonsense anyway, I don't even know if I'd recommend watching it to finish the story, because hell if I know what just happened.
